Robert Horry believes the Rockets would beat Jordan and the Bulls in the Finals: “That matchup was favorable for us”
When discussing the greatest times in NBA history, there is zero chance that the historic Chicago Bulls squad that won two three-peats in eight seasons from 1991 to 1998 wouldn’t be in the Top 3.
However, a short title drought happened in the two seasons between those runs, and that was the period when the Houston Rockets ran the show in the Association.
Truth be told, Michael Jordan, who was the absolutely best player on the planet, unexpectedly retired because he “had nothing more to prove in basketball,” which opened up the path to the throne for the rest of the teams.
Robert Horry, who was one of the key cogs of that Houston generation, went a step further and claimed that even with Jordan, Chicago would have a tough time against the surging Rockets team, and regrets this hypothetical debate was never settled on the hardwood.
“Big time! So I can shut all these doubters up,” Horry said. “Cause everybody’s like, ‘Oh, ’94, ’95, if Jordan was here you wouldn’t have won.’ Jordan was back in ’95; he just didn’t have a good team. And you cannot be successful in the NBA without having a good team.”
The Rockets had the Bulls’ numbers
If we go back in time, we can see that from the 1990-91 campaign up until 1992-93, just before Mike announced his first retirement, the H-Town squad held a 5-1 record against Chicago in their six regular-season meetings. A big role in that scoreline was played by arguably the greatest center of that era, Hakeem Olajuwon.
The seven-footer’s presence was felt both on the offensive end and with locking down the paint, and the fact that the Bulls at the time had no one to contain “The Dream” definitely works in Houston’s favor in this debate, something that “Big Shot Bob” absolutely agrees with.
“For me, if you go back and look at our history against the Bulls when I was with the Rockets, I think we were like 7 and 1, or 6 and 2, something like that. It was favorable for us…The Bulls never had anybody that could guard Hakeem Olajuwon. And he gets disrespected all the time about how good he really was,” the seven-time Champ added.
